The present invention relates generally to retail terminals and, more particularly, to a retail terminal utilizing an imaging scanner and optical character recognition for product label reading.
In the retail industry, a number of electronic retail terminals are used throughout a retail store. For example, the retail store may include a number of point-of-sale (POS) terminals such as traditional assisted (i.e. clerk-operated) checkout terminals. In addition to assisted point-of-sale terminals, the retail store may also include a number of unassisted point-of-sale terminals such as self-service checkout terminals. Self-service checkout terminals are retail terminals which are operated by a customer without the assistance of a retail clerk.
Moreover, in addition to point-of-sale terminals, the retail store may also include a number of information retail terminals such as kiosk-type devices. Such information retail terminals are generally located throughout the shopping area of the retail store and are provided to perform various information retail functions such as a product demonstration function (e.g. an audio/video advertisement), a customer data collection function (e.g. collecting and maintaining a customer profile database), and in some cases even a transaction function in which a customer may use the kiosk to tender payment for his or her items for purchase. Information retail terminals may be used to display product information to retail customers, or may be used as an interactive retail terminal which provides assistance to customers in response to a customer""s input via a keypad or the like.
In the retail industry, scanners are becoming more and more prevalent, and even commonplace. Traditionally, such scanners are used for scanning or reading bar codes (i.e. Universal Product Codes or UPCs). Bar codes, and thus scanners, are used in many industries for a variety of applications including retail product sales, inventory tracking, package sorting and the like. The problem with traditional scanners is that they can only read linear and stacked-linear bar codes. Imaging scanners or imagers however, can not only be used to read bar codes but can be used to capture images and other pictures. In addition, pressure sensitive imagers are used in the retail industry to capture signatures for credit card purchases and the like.
Essentially, scanners/imagers take a picture of the item then software processes the picture. If the image scanned is a bar code, the software distinguishes the lines of the bar code from the rest of the picture and returns the value of the bar code. Other processing may occur after determining the value of the bar code, such as returning the price of the item associated with the bar code through the aid of a price or product look-up (PLU) table or database. However, there are times when a bar code is not present or cannot be read. Further, the PLU may not provide the information desired. As well, if the image is a picture, the software may typically download the picture and perform whatever function is programmed for the picture.
In the case of a label on a product, the product label includes various useful information other than the bar code. Such label information however, is alphanumeric rather than an image or a bar code. Thus, traditional scanning/imaging and processing techniques cannot be used on product labels. It would be advantageous to be able to read and utilize the alphanumeric information on a product label of a product.
What is therefore needed is a system for identifying information on a label of a product other than the bar code.
What is further needed is a system for identifying information on a label of a product other than the bar code and utilizing at least part of the label information to retrieve answers to user queries relative to the product or label information.
What is even further needed is a system for identifying any attribute of a label or product and utilizing the attribute to obtain and/or retrieve information relative to the attribute.
In one embodiment, the present invention provides a system, method and apparatus for identifying/utilizing an attribute of a product and/or product label by a retail terminal. The product/product label is scanned by an imager associated with the retail terminal. The retail terminal recognizes or acknowledges a selected attribute of the product/product label and provides information relative to the scanned product/product label.
In one form, a retail terminal includes a processing unit, memory electronically coupled to the processing unit, and an imager electronically coupled to the processing unit. The imager is adapted to scan the product/product label to obtain product attribute data. Instructions, stored in the memory, allow the retail terminal to utilize the product attribute data to obtain correlative information.
The correlative information may be obtained from a database, data warehouse, the internet, or the like. The correlative information may be in response to a user query. The product attribute data may be alphanumeric and/or graphic in nature.
In another embodiment, the present invention is a retail terminal providing a system, method and apparatus for identifying a product attribute by scanning the product label. The product label is scanned by an imager of a retail terminal. An optical character recognition (OCR) program is used on the scanned product label which generates text strings from alphanumeric label information/data. Text strings are then compared to various text strings in a database or look-up table to return information relative to the scanned text string(s).
In one form, kiosks, incorporating an imager and the necessary hardware and software to scan a product label and process the scanned information in accordance with the present principles, may provide printouts of product information, instructions, order forms or the like for the scanned product. Additionally, standard queries or user-generated queries may be answered relative to the scanned product label. Data, stored either locally or at a remote site accessible via a network or the like, is correlated to a plurality of text strings that correspond to alphanumeric text on a plurality of product labels.
Implementations of the present invention, without being exhaustive, include locating products having similar ingredients as the product scanned, determining the location of the product in the store from a scanned label, determining whether the store carries the same or similar products to the product scanned, determining whether there is a coupon available for the scanned product, and/or determining what products, if any, are made by the manufacturer of the scanned product.